Ah, the hap.

Cary had very badly blocked ears when he was very young (they're now fine)
and his hearing wasn't the best. So instead of prouncing the hard 't' sound,
he pronounced it 'p'. Whilst the words he learnt later - with clearer
hearing - are prounounced correctly, there very earliest words remain
misprounonced, and I haven't bothered to correct his his favourite animal:
pussycaps, where poo comes from: boppims (bottoms) and the things you wear
on your head: haps. I know it will self correct soon enough, but in the mean
time, I find it just too cute.

It being Australia, sunburn is a real issuefor everyone, starting day one.
When I went to school, the received wisdom was to go out and get oneself the
nastiest case of sunburn you could get on the first day of summer, suffer
the pain, blisters and eventual peeling of one or two layers, and then you'd
be fine for the rest of the summer. The only place you'd put sunscreen (and
it was that gunky white zinc oxide paste) was over the top of the nose and
bottom lip, and only if you were going to be out in the sun *all day*.
Otherwise, on English tourists and wimps wore sunscreen. But times have
changed and children in any institution can't go outside unless they're
wearing a hat and sunscreen, and its no different at Cary's "school".

He started there before he could even walk, but he had to wear a hat anyway.

Just after he was born, my sister made a matching blue-cammo patterned
'bucket' hat and pants for him. His pants quickly  became too small, but
despite the fact the bucket hat was *way* to big (I can put it on *my*
head!), he became very very attached to his blue cammo bucket 'hap' it would
not go anywher outside the house without it. It became his security blanket
and he would scream blue bloody murder if someone took it off.

We knew he was getting used to being somewhere if his hat came off during
activities and he didn't dive to put it straight back on. Once he considered
it a truly safe (inside) place, he woudl take it off himself, but woe betide
*anyone*, including Joel and I, who tried to take it off his head. He was
*extremely* attached to said hap.

We have friends with children - a boy and a girl - who are older than Cary.
We get alot of their hand-me-downs. In on bag there was a large woman's blue
sun hat with 'bad girl' written on in 'graffiti' script. Cary took an
instant like to said hap, and for the past year and a half - since he was 2
or so, there is no photo of Cary outside of either my house or my parent's
house where his face isn't half obscured by this gigantic big blue floppy
hat bit "bad girl' embroidered prominantly on the front. I even drove a
100km round trip back to my sister's place because we'd accidently left it
there and had bundled the Yowlet into the car whilst he was asleep. He would
never have gone out the door without his beloved hap.

Just before we went on holidays, we thought perhaps we needed a more
appropriate hap^Ht, one more suited to swimming and water activities than a
big floppy blue canvas hat with 'bad girl' on it and a large unmovable stain
from him filling the thign with tomato sauce once. We found a very nifty
'surfing' hat, that was strap on (always a good choice), protected his ears
from accidental splashes, had a wide brim, and looked a bit more appropriate
than "bad girl". He wore it for most of the holiday, but didn't attach to it
as much as he had the previous two haps. Ocasionally, he'd even forget to
put it one, and we had to remind him.

We thought perhaps the hap obession was broken, and now he'd simple wear a
*hat* when he needed protection from sunburn.

This of course, was not to be. Near the end of the my vacation we were
cleaningup his room, sorting out clothes that were too small for him, still
too big for him, and clothes so hideous we'd never let him wear, and there,
in one of the bags of 'too small' was the first blue-cammo bucket hat.

I had a  bit of a 'Wistful Mother' moment and thought that perhaps since we
didn't have a pair of booties to put away, perhaps we should put away his
beloved hap as a keepsake. Ishould have been quicker and not so darn
sentimental, because as I sat there, with hap in hand, reminiscing baby
thoughts, Cary came in, snatched the blue cammo bucket hat out of my hand
and said with all the passion a three and a half year old can muster (and
thats alot) " I love this hap!!!".

And once again, it has become almost permanantly attached to his head. Guess
the 'hap' hasn't quite retired yet.

Yowie